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Sunday, December 7, 2014

Linux Mint 17.1 "Rebecca" Mate Review: Simply awesome performance!

I guess I discussed sometime back in my blog that Linux Mint won't pursue Ubuntu's schedule of releasing a new distro every 6 months and instead focus on Ubuntu's LTS releases. True to their promise, they have released an update to the Linux Mint 17 LTS, nicknamed "Rebecca". The release notes states of the following incremental improvements: "The team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 17.1 'Rebecca' MATE. Linux Mint 17.1 is a long term support release which will be supported until 2019. It comes with updated software and brings refinements and many new features to make your desktop even more comfortable to use. Linux Mint 17.1 MATE edition comes with two window managers installed and configured by default: Marco (MATE's very own window manager, simple, fast and very stable); Compiz (an advanced compositing window manager which can do wonders if your hardware supports it). Among the various window managers available for Linux, Compiz is certainly the most impressive when it comes to desktop effects."

I downloaded the 64-bit version of Linux Mint 17.1 Mate, 1.557 GB in size. I tried Mate first as it seemed more enticing because of the presence of compiz. Please note, I did not upgrade from Linux Mint 17 to Linux Mint 17.1 and it cannot be done via terminal using sudo apt-get dist-upgrade. This specific blog from Linux Mint talks of the upgrade process using MintInstall. Mint 17.1 ships with Linux kernel 3.13.0 and Mate DE 1.8.1. It is based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS release.

I created a live USB using Linux Mint Image Writer on a 4 GB pen drive. I booted the distro on my Asus K55VM and post live boot, installed it on a 50 GB partition.

Linux Mint installation is the same as before and nothing has changed in this version. It is the same easy installation with the simple steps, as shown below. Overall, installation may take about 10-20 minutes of time depending on internet speed.

Mint 17.1 Mate worked impeccably on the system I used, recognizing the screen resolution, sound card, graphics, WIFI and LAN along with touch pad. Post-installation, I installed Nvidia drivers from the Driver Manager in Control Center.

I reviewed Ubuntu Mate 14.10 on Nov 22, 2014. It had a GNOME 2 look with a very simple menu. Though Mint 17.1 Mate ships with the same desktop environment (Mate 1.8.1) but it is very different in terms of looks. Mint Mate looks typical Mint with its traditional grey colored wallpaper and only a bottom panel. The menu too is very different from GNOME 2 and has a more modern look with options of easy access to favorite applications. The keyboard shortcuts are pre-configured and the menu responds to win key. I did not find it in Ubuntu 14.10 Mate.

From animations section and compizconfig settings manager you can try out a whole lot of cool effects. One thing to note here - post initial compiz enabling, the menu icon stopped working. However, after restarting the system a couple of times everything worked really smooth.

Post compiz settings, I tried out giving some new look to the distro. Honestly, after bad experience with Windows, where I nearly lost all my critical work, I hate the Windows look in any Linux OS I use. So, I moved the bottom panel to the top, made it transparent and added a docky. It looked much cooler to me than the default Mint appearance.

So, I go with full score on aesthetics for Linux Mint 17.1 Mate. The distro has a professional and polished interface and is very much customizable. Plus, those who like a bit of glitter would be satisfied with what compiz has to offer in the Mate edition. Others, like me, who prefer less animation as they can be really distracting at times, can switch to the comparatively less annoying Marco.

Score for Aesthetics: 10/10

Pre-Installed Packages

Like other previous editions, Mint has all the basic packages required for daily use in this version as well, namely:

Though the release note promises of updated packages, but LibreOffice version is an old one - Ubuntu 14.10 ships with LibreOffice 4.3.2.2. It is a bit of a letdown. Other packages are of the latest version like the updated Firefox 34.0, GIMP or the photo editor, VLC 2.1.4, etc.

Multimedia restricted codecs and Adobe flash plugin are pre-installed in the distro and they even worked in live boot. I played a few songs in my favorite music player MOC (which I downloaded from the repos) and everything worked well, including sound output.

Mate has a nice integrated control manager to tweak through the settings options. Compizconfig settings manager too is a part of control center. The same settings options are also part of Menu -> Preferences.

In overall, I think Mint 17.1 Mate provides a comprehensive set of applications, good enough for daily use. However, I miss a VoIP client and packages like download manager, Wine, etc. here. So, I am going with a score of 8/10.

As I mentioned, LibreOffice package is a bit antiquated in Linux Mint 17.1. So, to keep updated with the latest packages, specially in case of LTS releases, I trust on launchpad ppa's. To make my system more usable and to continue using the latest stable packages (remember it is an LTS and packages become antiquated within 6 months!), I installed several utility ppa's through terminal, namely:

Though document viewer works perfectly fine, but at times I require Adobe acrobat reader, especially for dynamic content. Installation of Adobe acroread is a bit tricky and I document here, what worked with me. I downloaded the AdbeRdr9.5.5-1_i486linux_enu.bin file from Adobe website and put it in the home directory. I opened terminal and ran the following commands:
$ sudo chmod +x ./AdbeRdr9.5.5-1_i486linux_enu.bin
$ sudo ./AdbeRdr9.5.5-1_i486linux_enu.bin
Agree to whatever options it asks and once installed it is time to install 32-bit architecture, if your OS is 64-bit.
$ sudo apt-get install ia32-libs
Post installation, Adobe Acrobat Reader should work without any issue.

Performance

As always what happens with every Mint release, Linux Mint always works! I found the distro very stable and offer very good performance. Based on my benchmark tests, the results of resource usage and boot time are given below:

Boot time

With autologin enabled, the Mint 17.1 Mate took about 30 seconds to boot which is 25% lower than the average boot time of all GNOME and GNOME forked distros I have used on the same machine, Asus K55VM, between 2013-14.

At steady state, Mint 17.1 Mate consumes about 349 MB RAM which is about 8% lower than the average RAM consumption of all GNOME or GNOME forked distros used between 2013-14. With full blown compiz enabled with almost every effects on, the RAM consumption increased to about 420 MB which is within low RAM consumption range. I must say, it is really impressive. However, Ubuntu 14.10 Mate (not official though) consumes slightly lower RAM than Linux 17.1 Mate.

On my benchmarking tests, Linux Mint 17.1 performed admirably and is the most efficient of all the GNOME or GNOME forked distros I tried recently. This is a recent benchmark I added and hence, the number of distros in this benchmark is low.

Mint 17.1 Mate consumes 12% less power than the recently released Ubuntu 14.10 and 6% less power than Ubuntu 14.10 GNOME. On my laptop that normally lasts about 4 hours on average Linux distro, Linux Mint 17.1 Mate gave a battery life of around 6 hours with normal usage. It is definitely one of the better Linux operating systems that I have used as far as battery life is concerned.

Linux Mint 17.1 Mate is definitely a distro worth trying for the users looking for an efficient and functional distro with superb battery life. Compiz is an added attraction and has definitely rendered more charisma to the otherwise blander Mate (compared to KDE, GNOME 3, Cinnamon, etc.). Mate is as flexible as GNOME 2 and you can tweak it as much as you can. The hard work of the developers is evident from this distro and I had a good time with Mint Mate over the last couple of weeks.

Linux Mint 17.1 Mate is definitely recommended from my side. You may find it more compelling than Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon. In fact, in my next review on Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon, I am planning to do a comparison between the two. Mint 17.1 Mate ships in both 32 and 64 bit versions which can be downloaded from this link.

Hi Arindam,it's kind of obvious that the Ubuntu derived OSes have a higher RAM consumption. I guess this is because of the indexing that happens because of Zeitgeist. Can you separate the RAM consumption from Zeitgeist from the rest in the RAM usage overview?

Thanks for liking and following my blog. After reviewing both the distros, I honestly prefer Linux Mint 17.1 Mate more as it has better aesthetics, more stability (Linux Mint always works!), comparable resource usage and if you are planning to use on a laptop, definitely much better battery life.

Hello Arindam,since 2013 I enjoy your great reviews.Till today I did not find any comparable site in the internet.Thank you very much for all your effort and work!

Today I have a suggestion for an additional test in your reviews:- Does the encrypted installation work? (LVM-Installation ......)- Is the password needed when waking up the computer from sleep or locked modus?- Is the swap encrypted as well?

This is essential for systems used for work having critical informations, documents etc.In the last days I tried two hands full of various distros and ca. 50 % of them did not fullfill one or all criteria.

And a hint: some of those distros fullfilling all criteria deny LVM-installation because they install a RAM-swap at startup.These distros must be run as live system first, then type in terminal sudo swapoff -a to switch off RAM-swap.Now you can install LVM-system

You mention two different repositories Silverlight substitute - Pipelight: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mqchael/pipelight-dailyand$ sudo apt-add-repository ppa:pipelight/stableOne is not enought ?I tried the second and it works thank you

Thanks again for another thorough review. I noticed your comment regarding Everpad and I installed it per your instructions and everything seemed to go well. However I have not been able to get it working properly. In short I used the drop down menu from the panel icon but there are only two options on the panel, 'Setting and Management' and 'Exit'. After entering the account information and closing I'm still left with only the two options and no editing options. As a result I cannot open or start any notes. After an hour or more of playing around, and having installed it on both Linux Mint Mate and Ubuntu Mate, then googling I found an older post saying it hasn't been supported by Ubuntu for the past three releases or so.Were you able to get it working after you installed it? Is there something simple I may be overlooking? Sorry for the questions but I'm running out of options and I wanted to give it one more try before I un-install.

Again thanks for the excellent reviews and the howto's on installing software from the ppas have proven very helpful for me as well.